Last week I gave a talk about threats for the universal computer (e.g.
non-free software, Digital Restriction Management, and secure boot) at
the Cyber Security
Day.
There are still a lot of people whom we have to convince about Free
Software there. One of the participants there asked, why I focused on
software, and if we don't need the same control over our hardware.

[

It is true, in my talk I focused on how we lose control through software
over our machines and how we can protect this freedom. I did that mainly
because I work for the Free Software Foundation Europe, and I focus
on software. But I agree that our society will be in a better position
if we also control our hardware, which is the basis for our software.
The right to learn how the hardware works, the right to modify and
extend the hardware, will help us to understand our technology, this
will help us to limit the concentration of power, and -- for the topic
of the event -- it will enable us to secure our data.

I was very happy to learn from Bunnie that the Novena
project, which
looks really promising, already has enough funding to build an
open-hardware computing platform, which should fit hacker's needs,
designed for use as a desktop, laptop, or standalone board. The project
also reached their financial goal to contract Jon Nettleton to write
Free Software drivers for Open 2D/3D Graphics on Novena. Those drivers
will not only help future owners of the novena hardware, but also Free
Software users who use i.MX6 CPUs, such as the cubox, pandaboard, or
wandboard.

The Novena project is still looking for community members to support the
project. For example, they are 35 devices short of hitting a goal of
getting SDR boards to all the backers. So if you want to support open
hardware and Free Software drivers, do so until tomorrow, May
18.